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SUBSTANCE OF EXPRESSION —INVENTION.
SUBSTANCE OF EXPRESSION INVENTION. INVENTION SUBSTANCE OF EXPRESSION —INVENTION. Examine well, ye writers, weigh with care What suits your genius, what your strength will bear. —llokscx. Never read till you have thought yourself empty ; never write till you have read yourself full. —RICHTER. Invention, though it can be cultivated, cannot be reduced to rule; there is no science which will enable a man to bethink himself of that which will suit his purpose. But when he has thought of something, science will tell him whether that which he has thought of will suit his purpose or not. —J. S. MILL. T HE word invention is derived from the Latin invenire, to come in, to enter. By the natural progress of language from the literal to the metaphorical, it came in process of time to signify discovery. Rhetorically, it consists in the faculty of finding whatsoever is proper to be said, and of devising suitable forms for the purpose of discourse. Absolutely, it is the whole talent, presenting itself at every point in the art. The invention of the ideas, or of the matter, however, is invention in the highest sense of the term. Choice of Subject—The subject may be furnished, and invention will then be taxed only in treating it; as in courts of law, in legislative debates, in prize essays, in many academical exercises: or it may be left to your choice; as in pulpit eloquence, in occasional addresses, and in most kinds of composition. If the latter, let it be level to the capacity of your audience. Let it be chosen with reference to the occasion and your design, whether to instruct, to convince, to persuade, to please, or all of these. Find one that is appropriate to your age and attainments, one to which you have felt or will feel attracted. The attempt to discuss a subject not fairly within your power must issue in vagary, frigidity, and failure. A wise distrust is better than an overweening confidence or a false pride. To do anything excellently, you should do it from conviction. Unless you are yourself interested, you cannot expect to interest others. The words that are 'half battles' are never spoken but in sincerity. Nothing is more easily detected, or more repellent, than a lukewarm earnestness or a counterfeit enthusiasm. Remember, too, that the humblest subject may be lifted into the region of literature. Cowper produced a great poem on 'The Sofa, ' and called it The Task. A stolen lock of hair inspired Pope's brilliant mock-heroic poem, The Rape of the Lock. A London linen-draper, Izaak Walton, won an honorable place among British authors by a treatise on Angling, written, perhaps, to teach the angler's lowly craft, yet in such sweet and serious diction, with such infusion of rational loyalty to things human and Divine, of simple, child-like love for the beauties of earth and sky, that his little book on fishing has outlived many a more ambitious work. Determination of Subject. —Having chosen your subject, contemplate it from a particular point of view, and neglect all that is irrelevant. If you decide, for example, to limit your attention to the religious aspects of Wealth, ignore its economical and its social aspects. If you are to write on Youth, restrict yourself to one of the many possible conceptions of it, —Hopefulness of Youth, or Youth is the Time for Education, or Pleasures of Youth, or How should Youth be Spent ? The general subject (or title) adopted by an essayist might be Dreams, but with this, in any single article, essay, chapter, or section, he would combine some limitary notion; as, Dreams and Realities; Dreams and Sleep; Dream sm. & tlwax Causes; Crimes in Dreams; Extraordinary Dreams; Laws of Dreams; Literature of Dreams; Strangely Fulfilled Dreams; Warnings in Dreams, etc. So much of the subject as you intend to develop, is, whether. implied or formally stated, technically known as the status. It is sometimes distinguished as thethesis, or theme. Other names are commonly applied, as position, standpoint, central thought, proposition. Thus the ground, main idea, point of view, central thought, or status of Burke's speech on Conciliation with America is, that the people of the American colonies should be admitted into an interest in the constitution, and be allowed the rights of Englishmen. The status of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, as of Dante's Div ma Commedia, is the trials of the soul in its stages from conversion to glory, or from the probation of earth to the rewards of heaven; of Thackeray's Vanity Fair, denunciation of shams; of Hawthorne'sScarlet Letter, the eternal and illimitable consequences of human action. The status is evidently at the threshold of all good writing, and is the germ of the entire discourse. If properly conceived and expressed, it should be the fruit of prolonged reflection. It should have unity; should be clear; should be comprehensive rather than extensive. Not otherwise is it possible for any work, literary or artistic, to be well done. A great deal of the discomfort and difficulty of writing compositions arises from the want of a well-defined subject, or nucleus of thought. When the young confess that they do not know what to write about, it will often be found that they have been dissipating their energies in the endeavor to cover too wide a range. In all probability, they have formed no status. Honesty or The Ideal is not a status, but a term. To treat of either, the writer should begin by asking what he believes to be true of it that is, by framing some proposition respecting it: as, Honesty is the best policy; Love of the ideal is an evidence of the soul's immortality; The instinct which prompts man to form and pursue an ideal of character or condition is the mainspring of human progress; or, The effort to realize something better and higher than the present actual is the law of the world. The importance of a status kept steadily in view is well illustrated by Dr. J. H. Newman, who supposes a young Mr. Brown to have written a composition which has been sent by his admiring father to a tutor (Mr. Black) at the University: FORTES FORT UNA ADJUVAT. ' Of all the uncertain and capricious powers which rule our earthly destiny, Fortune is the chief. Who has not heard of the poor being raised up, and the rich being laid low? Alexander the Great said he envied Diogenes in his tub, because Diogenes could have nothing less. We need not go far for an instance of fortune. Who was so great as Nicholas, the Czar of all the Russians, a year ago, and now he is fallen, fallen from his high estate, without a friend to grace his obsequies. ' The Turks are the finest specimen of the human race, yet they too have experiencecb the vicissitudes of fortune. Horace says that we should wrap ourselves in our virtue when fortune changes. Napoleon, too, shows us how little we can rely on fortune; but his faults, great as they were, are being redeemed by his nephew, Louis Napoleon, who has shown himself very different from what we expected, though he has never explained how he came to swear to the Constitution, and then mounted the imperial throne. From all this it appears that we should rely on fortune only while it remains, — recollecting the words of the thesis, Fortes fortuna adjuvar; and that, above all, we should ever cultivate those virtues which will never fail us, and which are a sure basis of respectability, and will profit us here and hereafter. Not one word of this, ' says Mr. Black, to whom the boy's father has submitted the composition for criticism, is upon the thesis. . . . "Fortes fortuna adjuvat " is a proposition ; it states a certain gene- ml principle; and this is just what an ordinary boy would be sure to miss, and Robert does miss it. He goes off at once on the word " fortuna. " " Fortuna" was not his subject; the thesis was intended to guide him, for his own good; he refuses to be put into leading strings; he breaks loose, and runs off in his own fashion on the broad field and in wild chase of "fortune" instead of closing with the subject, which, as being definite, would have supported him. 'It would have been very cruel to have told a boy to write on ' fortune"; it would have been like asking him his opinion of " things in general. " Fortune is " good, " " bad, " "capricious, " "unexpected, " ten thousand things all at once— you see them all in the Gradus, and one of them as much as the other. Ten thousand things may be said of it; give me one of them, and I will write upon it; I cannot write on more than one; Robert prefers to write upon all. . . 'Now, I will prophesy one thing of Robert, unless this fault is knocked out of him, ' continued merciless Mr. Black: When he grows up, and has to make a speech, or write a letter for the papers, he will look out for flowers, full-blown flowers, figures. smart expressions, trite quotations, hackneyed beginnings and endings, pompous circumlocutions, and so on; but the meaning, the sense, the solid sense, the foundation, you may hunt the slipper long enough before you catch it. ' Accumulation of Material. —Afterthe choice and determination of your subject, the next step is to take account of what you know or think, to recall and evolve, by patient reflection, all that can be made useful in exhibiting and enforcing your views. Thought must be continuous and concentrated, directed to a definite object, not allowed to wander from one thing to another. It is possible to look your subject into shape. As troops, to achieve a glorious victory, must be marshaled upon the same plain, obey the same commander, fight the same foe; so the faculties, to effect anything important, must act in concert, sieze their purpose with vigor, and pursue it with perseverance. The poet's soul, like the maniac's eye, may roll in fine frenzy; but to the student, steadiness of gaze is indispensable. Only this can revive the facts and principles which lie dormant in the memory, unfold the full import of much that is there, bring together the scattered fragments, discover new relations, and afford a general idea of the line of development. As well might genius say, Go to, I will make a religion, ' as, 'Go to, I will make a great essay. ' The proposed result cannot be reached by pressure or cramming, or by the most heroic extempore endeavor. The rays of the intellect must be converged to a focus, and be held there. 'The subject, ' says Dr. Mathews, 'must be brooded over from day to day, till, by the half-conscious, half-unconscious processes of thought, all that is unessential, incongruous, or foreign, has been sloughed off; till all difficulties, surveyed again and again from new angles of vision, have been resolved, and that which was at first but a faint suggestion of truth, has surrounded itself, by a kind of elective affinity of ideas, with appropriate imagery and illustration, and stands out, at last, in bold relief and in full proportion before the mental eye. ' This previous meditation will prepare you to read with advantage what others have written. You will be less liable to be diverted to foreign matters, and will detect more quickly whatever is related to your subject. Be not biased by the authority of a name. Weigh and consider. Let your reading be varied. New views will thus be obtained, and your knowledge will be comprehensive. Let your authors be not only in unison with your opinions, but also adverse to them. You will thus be constrained to self-activity, feeling yourself strengthened by coincidence, and incited to a more careful examination by difference. Says Sir William Hamilton, 'To read passively, to learn—is, in reality, not to learn at all. In study, implicit faith, belief upon authority, is worse even than, for a time, erroneous speculation. " I call that the best theme, ' says Dr. Arnold, which shows that t'aeNcicvg has read and thought for himself; that the next best which shows that he has read several books, and digested what he has read; and that the worst which shows that he has followed but one book, and that without reflection. ' Gibbon's practice furnishes a good general rule: 'After a rapid glance on the subject and distribution of a new book, I suspend the reading of it, which I only resume 'after having examined the subject in all its relations; after having called up in my solitary walks all that I have read, or thought or learned in regard to the subject of the whole book or of some chapter in particular. I thus place myself in a condition to add to my general stock of knowledge, and I am thus sometimes favorably disposed by the accordance, sometimes armed by the opposition, of our views. ' His precepts, as well as his example, are valuable hints: 'Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which all our studies may point. Detached parcels of knowledge cannot form a whole. . . . While we propose an end in our reading, let not this end be too remote; and when once we have attained it, let our attention be directed to a different subject. Inconstancy weakens the understanding; a long and exclusive application to a single object hardens and contracts it. . . . To read with attention, exactly to define the expression of our author, never to admit a conclusion without comprehending its reason, often to pause, reflect, and interrogate ourselves; these are so many advices which it is easy to give, but difficult to follow. ' It may be added that, to render impressions specific and distinct, the thoughts gathered or suggested should be either carefully fixed in memory or noted on paper, grouped around the central idea in accordance with their relative value and pertinence. No ingenuity can draw water from a well that is dry. Only the Omnipotent can create. The loftiest genius does not feed on itself and spin cobwebs out of its own bowels. It is essentially receptive, recombining and recasting the funded thought of the ages. Hence the ancients called Memory the mother of all the Muses, and Chateaubriand averred that the highest productions are composed only of recollections. Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, and Shakespeare were debtors to an incalculable extent, illustrating Molière's principle, that he recovered his property wherever he found it; and Emerson's, 'Thought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him who can adequately place it. ' All that they had read, as well as all that they had seen, the results of reading, experience, and reflection, went into the mill, suffering 'A sea-change Into something rich and strange. ' The famous writers and speakers of the world, we repeat, have felt the importance of filling well the storehouse of the mind, in preparation whether for some special task or for their life-work. They have been greedy devourers of books, seizing and utilizing every appropriate image or apt thought which they could pick up in their reading. Robertson spent much of his time in the study of geology, chemistry, and other sciences, to givestrength and freshness to his sermons. Hundreds of passages in Milton are paraphrases or literal translations of passages in the Greek and Latin poets, while his diction has been affirmed to be the elaborated outcome of the best words of all antecedent poetry. Curran, the orator, studied English and classical literature with indefatigable zeal. Burke owed his vast knowledge and inexhaustible vocabulary to an extensive acquaintance with books. His speeches abound with poetical gems, especially from Virgil and Milton. Erskine committed a large part of the latter to memory, and so familiarized himself withS‘c. s. &ewe. , a. ce. that, it is said, he could have conversed on almost any subject for days together in the phrases of the great English dramatist. 'In literature, ' Choate was wont to say, 'you find ideas. There one should daily replenish his stock. The whole range of polite literature should be vexed for thoughts. ' Pope was a multifarious reader, but diligently selective; adopting all poetic ornaments, graceful contrasts, noble sentiments, and storing them away as his literary wardrobe; combining and classifying into a mental dictionary, so as to be ready at his call, the materials which might serve to round his periods or illuminate his ideas. What he heard, moreover, he was attentive to retain. If conversation offered anything, he committed it to paper. If a thought or phrase, happier than usual, occurred to him, he wrote it down. What is a great man, ' asks Emerson, 'but one of . great affinities, who takes up into himself all arts, sciences, all knowables, as his food ?' Elsewhere he asserts that the great man must be a great reader, and possess great assimilating power. He is greatest who converts most of his predecessors and contemporaries into nutriment for himself. Disposition. —It is assumed that you have thus far had constantly in vision the status of your intended production; that you have gradually developed certain leading thoughts which should enter into it, or perhaps that you have prepared a scheme of topics mere hints to guide your thinking and investigation; also, that under each of these principal heads you have decided upon certain subordinate ones; and that you have more or less closely examined the ideas met with or evolved, to find whether they have the characteristics which justify or require their adoption. Thus, suppose your subject to be GOSSIP, and your outline : 1. Origin — • Man naturally a communicative being. • • That of which the mind is full will come out in expression. • 2. Moral aspects — • A constant infraction of the Golden Rule. • • Evil effects upon individuals and society. • • Encouraged by caterers for the public press. • • Cure for gossip — culture. • Suppose, again, your subject to be THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. Status: A beneficent invention. Outline: Promotes intelligence — Comparison between past and present —Influence on commerce — On security — On morality — On peace — On civilization. Or, once more, MEMORY. Scheme: What it is value — At what period usually developed — Kinds —Should be selective — Marvellous feats — How impaired — How improved. A sermon by F. W. Robertson on the text, 'And you that were sometime alienated' and enemies in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled, ' presents the following form: 1. Alienation — • God from man. • • Man from God. • 2. Reconciliation — • Man to God. • • Man to man. • • Man to himself. • • Man to his duty. • The seventh chapter of Dr. Draper'sConflict between Science and Religion presents the following scheme: Subject, which is the same as the title of the woxif. , CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION. Status: Controversy respecting the age of the earth. Classification: Scriptural view that the earth is only six thousand years old, and that it was made in a week. — Patristic chronology founded on the ages of the patriarchs. —Difficulties arising from different estimates in different versions of the Bible. — Legend of the Deluge. —The repeopling. — The Tower of Babel; the confusion of tongues. — The primitive language. — Discovery by Cassini of the oblateness of the planet Jupiter. — Discovery by Newton of the oblateness of the Earth. —Deduction that she has been modelled by mechanical causes. —Confirmation of this by geological discoveries respecting aqueous rocks; corroboration by organic remains. — The necessity of admitting enormously long periods of time. — Displacement of the doctrine of Creation by that of Evolution. — Discoveries respecting the Antiquity of Man. —The time-scale and space-scale of the world are infinite. — Moderation with which the discussion of the Age of the World has been conducted. The ninth chapter of the first volume of Gibbon's Rome gives the following: GERMANY. Status: The state of Germany till the invasion of the barbarians in the time of the Emperor Decius. Analysis: • The bards. • • ( Want of arms. • • Causes which checked progress Want of discipline. ( Civil dissensions. • • Distinction of the German tribe. • • Numbers. • Starting with a rough draft of what you are to communicate, you will bear in mind that the analytic process must accompany the processes of reflection and research. The former should be shaped in the growing light of the latter, which it serves to direct. Before proceeding to write, there should be a final survey of the field of inquiry, and a final revision of your abstract, or plan. This is the time to ensure sequence and unity of parts. The distributing of ideas to their appropriate places so as to form a complete, harmonious whole, is calleddisposition. The plan, or right division and subdivision of your subject, must be a prominent object of attention and study. It signifies little how opulent you may be, if you have no command over your treasures. Hundreds can produce a crowd of good ideas upon any subject, for one that can marshal them with best effect. Says Vinet: Good thoughts . . . are abundant. The art of organizing them is not so common. . . . We should perhaps be within bounds in saying that disposition in a discourse is not of more secondary importance than the mode of aggregation of molecules in a physical substance; this mode in a great measure constitutes the nature of the body. ' Originality, according to Pascal, consists less in the newness of the thoughts than in their combination. Every man, as he walks through the streets, ' says De Quincey, may contrive to jot down an independent thought; a shorthand memorandum of a great truth. . . Standing on one leg, you may accomplish this. The labor of composition begins when y:Ax Naz. ve, \. o your separate threads of thought into a loom; to weave them into a continuous whole; to connect, to introduce them; to blow them out or expand them; to carry them to a close. ' The following passage from Burke is at once an enforcement and an illustration of method: My second condition necessary to justify me in touching the charter is —Whether the Company's abuse of their trust in regard to this great object be an abuse of great atrocity. I shall beg your permission to consider their conduct in two lights: first, the political, and then the commercial. Their political conduct, for distinctness, I divide again into two heads — the external, in which I mean to comprehend their conduct in their federal capacity as it relates to powers and states independent; the other internal, namely, their conduct to the countries either immediately subject to the Company, or to those who, under the apparent government of native sovereigns, are in a state much lower and more miserable than common subjection. The attention, sir, which I wish to preserve to method, will not be considered as unnecessary or affected. Nothing else can help me to selection out of the infinite mass of materials which have passed under my eye, or can keep my mind steady to the great leading points I have in view. If you would write with confidence and certainty, be methodical. Having found all the cardinal points into which, as it may seem, your subject should be resolved, examine them critically, as well as the subdivisions of each (if any such), to see that the order is organic, carrying the line of thought naturally and suggestively. Let no topic be raised to the rank of coordinate when it should be subordinate. Avoid tedious multiplication. Your skeleton or framework, of course, will fix the limits and determine the contents of the three grand parts of discourse, —the Introduction, the Discussion (or body), and the Conclusion. The introduction, or exordium, is designed to open the interview between speaker or hearer, or between writer and reader. While usually distinct from the main idea of the discourse, it should be closely connected with it, briefly conducting to it without any appearance of artifice or force. It should contain only what is easily understood and will be readily admitted. It should awaken interest, if not curiosity, and should dispose the mind pleasurably, if not eagerly, to what follows. Though it need not be written last, its determination should be deferred till the end proposed is distinctly apprehended, and the means to be employed are clearly discerned. You can introduce better when you know what is to be introduced. Cicero tells us that it was his custom first to plan and digest the materials gathered, and last of all to consider with what he should begin; for, if he attempted the introduction first, nothing occurred to him but what was trifling and commonplace. The length of the introduction will depend upon the nature and extent of the composition. It would be in poor taste to erect a huge portico before a small building. What is to be desired is not a delay or an interval more or less well occupied, but a preparation. The opening of Webster's rejoinder to Hayne is novel and striking: Mr. President. —When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and, before we float farther on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now are. I ask for the reading of the resolution before the Senate. The exordium is frequently omitted altogether, as in short essays, and, occasionally, in other productions where the discussion can be entered upon at once without abruptness. Cicero's first oration against Catiline is an example: Quouaque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra --` How long, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?' Even more important is the conclusion, nv -v. excitsl&xox. , which furnishes the proper means of retiring from the discussion. It has place after the subject has been completely treated, as the exordium has before the subject has been entered upon. It may be descriptive, emotional —purely an appeal to the feelings, emphatic—an emphasis of special propositions, retrospective—a reCapitulation or condensed summary of what has been said. It is here that you are to reap the harvest of the seed sown at the outset. Examine the sermons of Channing, Robertson, Beecher, or the essays of Addison, Montague, Macaulay, Hunt, . Landor, Emerson; and observe, for yourselves, the characters which the introduction and the conclusion present. But discourse cannot have the energy or elegance of a living whole till suitable connecting links are found; that is, transitions from one part to another which shall give coherence to the constituent elements. Their purpose is twofold and opposite, — to distinguish and to unite. A good transition combines several qualities. It should look both to what precedes and to what follows, and should do this in agreement with the common modes of associating the thoughts, making the points of contact so plain that they can be instantly discovered. It is not sufficient that the connection be real and necessary—it must be apparent. Says John Quincy Adams of these intermediate ideas, or references, whether announced with studious formality or involved in the shell of indirect allusion: 'The same natural aversion of mankind to abruptness at the commencement or close of an oration, which has established the custom of opening with an exordium and of ending with a peroration, has erected thesebridgesover the various inlets which intersect the different regions of the province. ' It is this demand that has created the continuative particles, whose use and value have been elsewhere remarked: however, moreover, indeed, thus, consequently, further, again, likewise, etc. Observe how Goldsmith's Traveller passes, in its description of countries, from Italy to Switzerland: My soul, turn from them ;— turn we to survey Where rougher climes a nobler race display. Similarly from Switzerland to France: Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast May sit like falcons, cowering on the nest : But all the gentler morals such as play Through life's more cultured walks, and charm the way, These, far dispersed, on timorous pinions fly, To sport and flutter in a kinder sky. To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, I turn —and France displays her bright domain. Milton, in revising Paradise Lost, made a division of the seventh book at the end of Gabriel's narrative to Adam, giving, for the first line of the resulting eighth book, To whom thus Adam gratefully replied. But to avoid a beginning so abrupt, three lines were added, by way of transition, and Adam's reply is now introduced by the following beautiful picture: The angel ended, and in Adam's ear So charming left his voice, that he a while Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear; Then, as new waked, thus gratefully replied. Amplification. —The outline being determined, the next step is to fill it up—so to enlarge tipon the ideas expressed under the various heads as to convert the fleshless abstract into a vivid exhibition. This process is called amplification. 'It is the moral and intellectual lens which, without altering the nature of the things themselves, swells and contracts their dimensions by the medium through which it presents them to the eye. " John Quincy Adam. . sudden dismay and scattering among the members produced by your turning the old stone over ! Blades of grass flattened down, colorless, matted together, as if they had been bleached and ironed; hideous crawling creatures, some of them coleopterous, or hornyshelled — turtle-bugs one wants to call them; some of them softer, but cunningly spread out and compressed like Lepine watches (nature never loses a crack or a crevice, mind you, or ajoint in a tavern bedstead, but she always has one of her flat-pattern live timekeepers to slide into it); black, glossy crickets, with their long filaments sticking out like the whips of four-horse stage-coaches; motionless slug-like creatures; young larva3, perhaps more horrible in their pulpy stillness than even in the infernal wriggle of maturity But no sooner is the stone turned, and the wholesome light of day let in upon this compressed and blinded community of creeping things, than all of them which enjoy the luxury of legs— and some of them have a good many—rush round wildly, butting each other and everything in their way, and end in a general stampede for underground retreats from the region poisoned by sunshine. Next year you will find the grass growing tall and green where the stone lay; the ground-bird builds her nest where the beetle had his bole; the dandelion and the buttercup are growing there, and the broad fans of insect angels open and shut over their golden disks as the rhythmic waves of blissful consciousness pulsate through their glorified being. The stone is ancient error. The grass is human nature, borne down and bleached of all its color by it. The shapes which are found beneath are the crafty beings that thrive in darkness, and the weaker organisms kept helpless by it. He who turns the stone over is whosoever puts the staff of truth to the old lying incubus, no matter whether he do it with a serious face or a laughing one. The next year stands for the coming time. Then shall the nature which had lain blanched and broken rise in its full stature and native hues in the sunshine. Then shall God's minstrels build their nests in the hearts of a new-born humanity. Then shall beauty, divinely taking outlines and colors, light upon the souls of men, as the butterfly — image of the beatified spirit rising from the dust —soars from the shell that held a poor grub, which would never have found wings had not the stone been lifted. —Dr. Holmes. Quotations, if tasteful and judicious, give completeness and finish. By necessity, ' says Emerson, by proclivity, by delight, we quote. ' Never hesitate to quote an author who will strengthen or illuminate your position. Great names have great weight. 'It is generally supposed, ' says D'Israeli, that where there is no quotation there will be found most originality. . . . The greater part of our writers, in consequence, have become so original that no one cares to imitate them; and those who never quote, in return are seldom quoted. ' Probably no writer has quoted more copiously and forcefully than Sir William Hamilton, himself one of the most erudite and brilliant of men. Be solicitous to quote aptly and usefully. Emerson well says: In literature quotation is good only when the writer whom I follow goes my way, and, being better mounted than I, gives me a cast, as we say; but if I like the gay equipage so well as to go out of my road, I had better have gone afoot. ' EXERCISES. What is the status of Macbeth, of Campbell's Last Man, or of Holland's Bitter-Sweet ? Criticise and amend the following analysis of The College Burning: • The smothered spreading of the fire. • • The kindling of the fire. • • Progress from part to part of the building. • • The bursting out of the flames. • • Importance of Education. • • The ruins. • • The sin of carelessness: • • The dying out of the fire. • • Classical study. • • The utility of fire departments. • • Relative destructiveness of fire and water. • • Cause of the fire. • 3. Correct the faults in the subjoined analysis of Anger: • What it is. • • Importance of self-control. • • Feelings consequent upon the indulgence of anger. • • Effects on the individual and on society. • • Moral character of this passion. • • Quotations — what others say of it. • • A. person in a violent tit of passion has the appearance of a maniac. • • An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes. —Cato. • Prepare am analysis of Hamlet, Richelieu, first book of Paradise Lost, Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Goldsmith's Deserted Village, or Hamilton's lecture on The Causes of Philosophy. Take account of your present knowledge or opinions on each of the following subjects; after reflection and (if necessary) after investigation, decide upon the point of view from which the subject shall be regarded— if the status is not given in the form in which the subject is presented for treatment ; read, either as you may elect or as indicated by the accompanying references; determine the general heads, and arrange the special under them, or revise your provisional analysis if such has been made; amplify —dispose your materials in effective order: (1) HAPPINESS MORE IN PURSUIT THAN IN POSSESSION. v--See Montaigne's Essays, p. 383; Royal Path of Life, p. 384; Hamilton's Metaphysics, Lecture I, pp. 69; Haven's Mental Philosophy, p. 512; Ruskin's Modern Painters, Vol. I, p. 16. (2) CONSCIENCE. See Montaigne's Essays, pp. 229, 231; Gladstone's Might of Right, p. 110; Smiles' Duty, p. 13; Clarke's SelfCulture, p. 195; Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, pp. 145, 147, 303; Popular Science Monthly, Vol. IX, p. 80; ibid, Vol. XIII, p. 5; Joseph Cook's Conscience, pp. 13, 87, 171; Wa, yland's Elements of Moral Science, pp. 49, 59, 71; Hoyt's Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations, pp. 61-63; Haven's Mental Philosophy, p. 314; Schuyler's Empirical and Rational Psychology, pp. 439, 489; Ruskin's Modern Painters, Vol. II, p. 35; Shakespeare's Henry VI, Act 3, Scene 1; Richard III, Act 1, Scene 4, Act 5, Scene 3; Henry VIII, Act 2, Scene 2, Act 3, Scene 2. (3) DOES POVERTY OR RICHES DEVELOP CHARACTER BEST. See Royal Path of Life, p. 120; Harnerton's Intellectual Life. '"" pp. 187, 341; Le Roy Pope's Modern Fancies and Follies, p. 79; Talmage's Daily Thoughts, p. 263; Holland's Gold Foil, p. 179; Holland's Letters to the Joneses, p. 335; Bacon's Essays, XX. XIV; Mathews' Getting On in the World, p. 0; Smiles' Self-Help, pp. 40, 342, 344; (Nation, Vol. III, p. 215'' Atlantic. Monthly, Vol. XLVI, p. 846; Whipple's Success and its Conditions, p. 273; George Ma, cdonald's Cheerful Words, p. 67; Ruskin's Modern Painters, Vol. I, pp. 4-5. (4) FRIENDSHIP. See Alcott's Table-Talk, p. 76; Bacon's Essays, XXVII; Emerson's Essays, First Series, VI; Greeley's Hints toward Reforms, p. 357; Mitchell's Reveries of a Bachelor, p. 212; Munger's On the Threshold, p. 31; Foster's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations, pp. 172-5; George Macdonald's Cheerful Words, p. 167; North American Review, Vol. LXXXIII, p. 104, Vol. CXXXIX, p. 453; Living Age, Vol. CXXIX, p. 214; Thackeray's London Sketches, pp. 26, 94; Alcott's Table-Talk, p. 77. (5) DANCING. See Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. VI, p. 43; Talmage's Abomination of Modern Society, p. 79; Chambers' Encyclopedia, Vol. III, p. 412; Munger's On the Threshold, p. 191; Thomason's Fashionable Amusements, p. 115; Living Age, LXXIII, p. 55; Penny Magazine, Vol. V, p. 1; Leigh Hunt's Seer, p. 105; Wise's Young Lady's Counselor, p. 199. (6) NOVEL-READING. See Potter's American Monthly, Vol. XII, p. 187; Edinburgh Review, Vol. XLIII, p. 356; Putnam's Magazine, Vol. IV, p. 389; Living Age, Vol. CXL, p. 349; Nation, Vol. II, p. 138; Talmage's Daily Thoughts, p. 327; Holland's Every-Day Topics, p. 269; Royal Path of Life, p. 162; Le Roy Pope's Modern Fancies and Follies, p. 172; Princeton Review, Vol. XLI, p. 202. (7) A TASTE FOR LITERATURE. See Dr. Porter's Books and Reading, pp. 30, 37-47, '72-80; Montaigne's Essays, p. 254; Hamerton's Intellectual Life, pp. 147, 853, 384; Munger's On the Threshold, p. 155; Beecher's Star Papers, p. 250; Emerson's Society and Solitude, p. 167; Scribner's Monthly, Vol. XV, p. 681; Living Age, LXIII, p. 72; Clarke's Self-Culture, p. 307; Isaac D'Israeli's Miscellanies, Vol. I, p. 22. (8) FLOWERS. See 13eecher's Star Papers, p. 93; Beecher's Fruit, Flowers, and Farming, p, 117; Ruskin's Studies of Wayside Flowers; All the Year Round, Vol. VII, p. 414; Atlantic Monthly, Vol. X, -%. %szt6A Living Age, Vol. XIX, p. 241; Chambers' Journal, Vol. XXII, p. 117; Ruskin's Modern Painters, Vol. II, p. 91, Vol. III, pp. 193, 227, Vol. V, pp. 88, 92, 97; Hoyt and Ward's Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations, pp. 125-132. (9) CO-EDUCATION. See The Nation, Vol. X, p. 134; ibid, Vol. XI, pp. 24, 383; /bid, Vol. XVI, p. 349; ibid. Vol. XXIX, p. 364; Eclectic Magazine, Vol. XL 11, p. 208; Living Age, Vol. CXXXVI, p. 685; Holland's EveryDay Topics, p. 237; American Journal of Education, Vol. XVII, p. 385; International Review, Vol. XIV, p. 130; North American Review, Vol. CXXXVI, p. 25. (10) I/REAMS. See Haven's Mental Philosophy, p. 351; George Macdonald's Cheerful Words, p. 143; Eclectic Magazine, Vol. LXXXII, p. 279; ibid, Vol. XCVI, p. 27; ibid, Vol. LXVI, p. 701; Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XLVI, p. 402; North American Review, Vol. CXXIV, p. 179; Living Age, Vol. CXL, p. 314; Seaffield's Literature and Curiosities of Dreams; Boismont's Hallucinations, p. 159; Hoyt's Cycloptedia of Practical Quotations, pp. 96-8; also various works on Mental Science. (11) INFLUENCE OF THE CRUSADERS. See Bryce's Holy Roman Empire, pp. 164, 166, 167, 193, 205, 209; Lewis' History of Germany, pp. 171, 185, 213, 215; Michaud's History of the Crusaders, Vol. I, Introduction, p. 24, Vol. III, pp. 326, 339; Hallam's Middle Ages, Index; Gibbon's Rome, Index; Yeats' Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce, pp. 171, 174; Hallaxn's Literature of Europe, Vol. I, pp. 113, 146; Milman's Latin Christianity, Vol. IV, pp. 24-34, 54, 68, Vol. VIII, pp. 370, 440; Palgrave's History of Normandy and England, Vol. VI, chap. xi; May's Democracy in Europe, Vol. I, pp. 254-256; Blanqui's History of Political Economy, pp. 125-133, 147. (12) LEADING CAUSES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. See Thiers' French Revolution, Vol. I, chap. i; Comparative Display of Different Opinions of British Writers on French Revolution, Vol. I, pp. 1, 41, 80, 113, 129, 131, 148, 155, 159, 109, 604, Vol. II, p. 450; Van Latin's French Revolutionary Epoch, Introduction, Vol. I, chaps. i, ii; Taine's French Revolution, Vol. I, chaps. i, ii; ibid, Ancient Regime, Book V, chaps. i, ii; Abbott's French Revolution, chap. iv; Schlosser's History of Eighteenth Century, Vol. VI, chap. i; Von Sybel's History of the French Revolution, Vol. I, Book I, chaps. i—iii, Book III, chap. i; Adams' (C. K. ) Monarchy and Democracy in France, p. 3; Dyer's Modern Europe, Vol. III, pp. 507-547; Alison's History of Europe (Edinburgh, 1835), chaps. iii; Kitchin's History of France, pp. 362, 492, 503, 506; North American Review, Vol. CXXXVII, p. 388; Mason's History of France; Carlyle's French Revolution. • TRIAL BY JURY. 1. / • See Stubb's Constitutional History of England, Vol. I, pp. 275, 395, 472, 473, 488, 489, 607-609, 620 (Grand Jury), Vol. I, pp. 469, 617; Stubb's Select Charters, Part IV; Creasy's English Constitution, chap. xiii; Forsyth's (Wm. ) History of Trial by Jury; De Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Index; Taswell-Langmead's Constitutional History of England, pp. 90, 128, 158, 161-170; Stephens' De Lome's English Constitution, Vol. II, p. 788; Blackstone's Commentaries (Covley's edition), Vol. II, p. 347; North American Review, Vol. XCII, p. 297; ibid, Vol. CXIX, p. 219; Nile's Register, VoL XIII, p. 139; Century, Vol. XXVI, p. 299; International Review, Vol. XIV, p. 158. • ENGLISH DRAMA • See Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric; Hazlitt's Literature of the Age of Elizabeth; Warton's History of English Poetry; Hallam's Literature of Europe; New American Cyclopmdia; Knight's, Hudson's, or Malone's Life of Shakespeare; Chambers's Cyclopedia of English Literature; Encycloptedia Britannica; North American Review, Vols. XXXVII1 and ()XXVI; Galaxy, Vol. XIX; Eclectic Review, Vol. XC; Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. LXXIX; Collier's English Dramatic Poetry. 6. Discuss the life and work of Goethe under the heads of biography, writings, style, rank (among the world's authors), character, and influence. See Emerson's Representative Men; Carlyle's Essays; Hutton's Essays in Literary Criticism; Hurst's Life and Literature in the Fatherland; Goodwin's Cycloptedia of Biography; Tuttle's German Leaders; American Cycloptedia; Encycloptedia Britannica; Nation, Vol. XXXII; Edinburgh Review, Vol. CVI; Living Age, Vol. CXXIX; Eclectic Magazine, Vol. LXXX; Contemporary Review, November, 1884. category:authorship